Non-profit director in Gaza: 'Children are literally starving'

Gaza humanitarian director for Save the Children Rachael Cumming said that the situation for people in Gaza is "catastrophic," emphasizing that children "are literally starving."

"The situation in Gaza is catastrophic for children and increasingly now for adults. There is no food available in the market. Children are literally starving," she told Jonathan Karl during an interview on ABC's "This Week." She noted that her team is "seeing an exponential line in the number of children attending our clinic," adding that the number is expected to increase.

"The number of children who are malnourished, very concerningly, pregnant women, women who are breastfeeding are also malnourished," she continued.

Cumming said the clinic in Deir Al-Balah, located in the center of Gaza, "was absolutely packed, and it was a scene I had never witnessed before."

"I've been working in this sector for over 20 years in the whole of Africa, in various places around the world," she said. "And every child in the health center today was malnourished, but also every adult was extremely thin, gaunt-looking, exhausted. The situation is absolutely terrible here."

"For months I've said, how can it get worse for children? It cannot get any worse for children, but apparently, yes, it can get worse for children," she later added.

Cumming noted that mothers went from "eating less than three meals a day to two meals a day, to one meal a day."

"Now, they're not having a meal a day," she said. "And this is very, very concerning. And this is at scale."

While she praised the recent aid airdrops in Gaza, which the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said included "flour, sugar, and canned food," she noted that the air drops need to be done "in a controlled manner."

"Airdrops are not in a controlled manner and one airdrop is equal to around one truck," she said.
"So we need to bring in humanitarian supplies, supplies over land through the recognized routes. We need the U.N. system to be enabled to manage the distributions."

"We welcome the fact that now the U.N. is allowed to bring in humanitarian supplies, including food, including medicines, including nutrition commodities, and including hygiene supplies," she added.

Her comments come amid Israel's “tactical pause” in fighting in Gaza amid mass starvation concerns. While leaders, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, say that Hamas is to blame because they stole food, reports from the Israeli military indicate that there is no proof that the Palestinian militant group had systematically stolen aid.